Bulgaria urges Turkey to comply with refugee readmission agreement
Bulgarian Foreign Minister Daniel Mitov says his country is urging Turkey to comply with a refugee readmission agreement with the EU and says Ankara should show that the agreement is working effectively.
Mitov was speaking in a television interview on June 22, a few hours before Bulgaria’s Cabinet was due to approval a protocol between Bulgaria and Turkey on the EU-Turkey readmission agreement signed in Ankara on May 5.
Bulgaria’s Prime Minister and its Interior Minister said some days ago that Bulgaria had attempted to return about 200 refugees to Turkey in terms of this agreement, but there had been no response from Turkey.
Mitov said that the problem with returning refugees to Turkey was not just a Bulgarian issue. He said that Bulgaria had tried and failed to return 195 refugees to Turkey. Other countries had had similar problems, he said.
The readmission agreement should be discussed at EU-Turkey level, Bulgaria’s Foreign Minister said. He said that the Turkish side had said that it had ratified the agreement, but that country was yet to accept how to apply the agreement itself. This was a legal case that should be decided at EU-Turkey level, Mitov said.
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